Title: Undertaking forest restoration on a landscape scale: Matching theory and practice in developed and developing countries

Abstract: In recent years large areas of tropical forest have been cleared to create more agricultural land. It is becoming evident that this clearing process has often gone too far since many of these lands have subsequently been abandoned and now lie in a degraded state (lTTO, 2002; Schroth el al., 2004; Palm el al., 2005; Rudel (et al., 2005). Fire in these areas may burn nearby intact forest and erosion in them often affects adjoining agricultural lands. Many are occupied by exotic weeds. One obvious solution is to reforest areas. This assumes the drivers of the original degradation process can be controlled and further disturbances can be prevented. Such reforestation would almost certainly assist in promoting the sustainability and future productivity of the nearby agricultural lands and would help counter the current global trend towards increasing biodiversity loss. The key question is: how might this reforestation be done on a scale that matches the magnitude of the problem? That is, given the current mix of silvicultural knowledge, policies and technologies, what restoration on a landscape scale? One obvious solution is to simply facilitate natural succession development. This may occur if furthur disturbances cease and plants and wildlife are able to recolonize the degraded areas from any remnants of natural forest that are still present. Such recovery occurred once farmning stopped in Puerto Rico (Aide et al., 2000). Similarly in Hong Kong, significant forest recovery occurred once a simple monoculture was present that facilitated further successional development (Nicholson. 1996; Zhuang and Corlett, 1997). But it is often difficult to exclude recurrent disturbances such as fire or prevent the harvesting of timber or other resources that some local people may depend on. In addition, many degraded landscapes are now without significant patches of residual forest. This may mean that the recolonization of these areas is likely to be non-existent or slow especially if they are now occupied by grasses. Under these circumstances various forms of active intervention will be needed. [Lamb, David (2010). Undertaking forest restoration on a landscape scale: Matching theory and practice in developed and developing countries. In Francisco A. Comin (Ed.), Ecological restoration: A global challenge (pp. 115-139) Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press.]

Original source




Article: WeedsNews2455 (permalink)
Categories: :WeedsNews:forestry, :WeedsNews:restoration, :WeedsNews:research alert, :WeedsNews:biodiversity
Date: 3 November 2011; 11:47:33 am Australian Eastern Daylight Time

Author Name: Zheljana Peric
Author ID: zper12